Issues 199 (resolved: a node-scoped seat's verb through the console) and 200 (the controller's answer to a long console call is refused by the bus)

Designs 33 and 08 revised. The first node-scoped seat with verbs: rules,
reload, remove; the nftables module holds it from a runtime with NET_ADMIN,
the first container to declare a capability.

02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md

@@ -0,0 +1,120 @@
+---
+topic: the mesh
+status: accepted
+date: 2026-10-02
+deciders: jochen
+reconstructed: false
+extends: 02-DECISIONS/0100-a-node-in-use-is-adopted-before-it-is-converged.md
+---
+
+# 168. A converged machine is filtered by the mesh alone, and the host says what else refuses
+
+## Context
+
+[ADR 0100](0100-a-node-in-use-is-adopted-before-it-is-converged.md) says what converging does to
+the firewall a machine was found with: the mesh's derived filter is loaded in place of the
+refusal-only guard, and the found firewall is retired — disabled, never flushed. Four issues from
+the first two convergences are four ways that sentence was not the machine:
+
+- the flip reported the found firewall retired and it was active two minutes later; fifty minutes
+  on, a reconcile found it disabled by hand and recorded that the mesh had done it
+  ([143](../04-ISSUES/143-converging-does-not-retire-the-firewall-it-found/00-report.md));
+- "the firewall found" named one front end, and what filtered the forwarded path on that machine
+  was a chain a predecessor had installed in the container runtime's user hook — invisible to the
+  mesh, refusing two ports the mesh declared open, and when it was removed, carrying an allowance
+  every module reaching another by the machine's own name had been relying on
+  ([144](../04-ISSUES/144-the-predecessors-rules-outlive-the-firewall-it-was-found-as/00-report.md),
+  [145](../04-ISSUES/145-a-machine-reads-healthy-while-its-modules-cannot-reach-each-other/00-report.md));
+- the forward chain listed address ranges that followed neither the modules nor the machine
+  ([141](../04-ISSUES/141-the-forward-chain-does-not-follow-the-modules/00-report.md)), answered by
+  [ADR 0140](0140-the-filter-constrains-what-arrives-from-outside.md) before this record;
+- the networking module wrote two machine-wide files whole, so taking it restarted every
+  container ([084](../04-ISSUES/084-taking-networking-on-an-adopted-node-restarts-every-container/00-report.md)),
+  answered by [ADR 0102](0102-the-mesh-writes-into-a-shared-file-never-over-it.md) and the hosts
+  file's marked region ([issue 128](../04-ISSUES/128-the-hosts-file-is-written-whole/00-report.md)).
+
+Read on the four machines of this mesh on 2026-10-02, after every one had converged: on both
+machines that had a front end it is inactive, and the host's record says the mesh retired it on
+both — true of one, false of the other. On the home server the predecessor's chain is still in
+force on the forwarded path, in the legacy packet filter the mesh's reader of rules does not
+consult once a machine is converged, so that machine is filtered by two things and the mesh says
+one. The host's reader already knows how to tell a table that refuses traffic from the runtime's
+own plumbing and from a ban list; it is asked once, at adoption, and only to refuse a machine
+whose firewall nobody speaks. Nothing asks it afterwards, and nothing reports what it saw.
+
+The group's exit is one sentence: *a converged machine has exactly one thing filtering it, and
+the mesh says truthfully which.* The first half the mesh can enforce only for what it owns; the
+second half it can always do, and it is the half that was missing.
+
+## Decision
+
+**1. Convergence is a state the host keeps, not a step it takes once.** Every apply of a converged
+declaration reads whether the found firewall is in force. Active — enabled again by a package, a
+boot, a hand — it is retired again and said. The record distinguishes *the mesh disabled it* from
+*it was found inactive*, and a reconcile that finds it inactive never records that the mesh did
+it. When the step is skipped because the apply had failures, the report says the found firewall
+was left in force and why; a step that does nothing is never silent.
+
+**2. The host reports what filters the machine, with every apply, adopted or converged.** Every
+table of the packet filter, and every chain of the legacy filter, that refuses traffic — a drop or
+a reject, or a base chain whose policy drops — with an owner: the *mesh's*, the *found firewall's*,
+the *container runtime's own*, a *ban* (a refusal that names the sources it refuses, in a chain
+that accepts nothing), or *other*. The runtime's own is its plumbing — its chains, the forward
+policy it sets when it turns forwarding on, its guard against reaching a container's address from
+off its bridge. The user chain the runtime leaves for an administrator is not the runtime's:
+anything refusing in it is *other*, which is where both predecessors' chains lived. Each entry
+says in one line what it refuses. The mesh removes none of it: a rule it did not write is the
+operator's to remove, now that they can see it.
+
+**3. The mesh says which.** `node show` lists the filters with their owners. `status` names every
+converged machine that something other than the mesh's table, the runtime's plumbing and a ban
+list filters, the way it names strays and untaken modules, and such a machine is not "all well".
+The converge preview lists the filters found and the fate of each: the found firewall retired, the
+runtime's and the bans left, *other* left and named — so a person knows before the flip that the
+machine will not be filtered by the mesh alone until they remove it, and what they would be
+removing. *A converged machine is filtered by the mesh alone* when its list holds nothing but the
+mesh's, the runtime's own and bans.
+
+**4. Adoption's threshold does not move.** A machine whose front end nobody speaks is still refused
+adoption; a refusing rule in the runtime's user chain still does not refuse it — on both machines
+of this mesh it would have, and the migration would not have happened. It is reported instead,
+from the first report on.
+
+**5. Two of the group's issues are settled by records already accepted.** The forward chain follows
+the machine's outward links and says nothing about networks ([ADR 0140](0140-the-filter-constrains-what-arrives-from-outside.md)),
+which answers 141 whole. The runtime's file is written into and reloaded, and the hosts file's
+region is the mesh's alone ([ADR 0102](0102-the-mesh-writes-into-a-shared-file-never-over-it.md),
+[issue 128](../04-ISSUES/128-the-hosts-file-is-written-whole/00-report.md)), which answers 084. One
+machine-wide file the mesh still writes whole is its own filter, at the path the distribution's
+packet filter reads; an operator's own rules at that path would be contested, and are held as
+found until the filter module is taken ([ADR 0163](0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md)).
+That is a difference a take shows, not a fault, and is decided when it bites.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- The host's report grows by the filters it found and, for a converged machine, the state of its
+  found firewall and who retired it; the controller keeps both on the node's record.
+- `retireFirewall` runs on every converged apply and can disable the found firewall more than
+  once; the record's *disabled by the mesh* means exactly that.
+- The reader of rules gains an owner per table and chain; what it refuses adoption for does not
+  change. A ban stays what it was: not a firewall.
+- Issues 143 and 144 close on rules 1 to 3 once a machine's record names the predecessor's chain;
+  141 closes on ADR 0140 and 084 on ADR 0102, both by reading.
+- Removing what is reported is the operator's act, by hand, with the preview's words in front of
+  them. The mesh never flushes and never deletes a rule it did not mark.
+
+## How this is checked
+
+| Rule | Checked by |
+|---|---|
+| Every refusing table and chain is classified, the user chain's refusals as *other* | host tests over rulesets captured from three machines of this mesh: a predecessor's chain in the legacy filter, a ban list and empty front-end chains beside the runtime's, a virtualisation host and an endpoint agent that refuse nothing |
+| The found firewall active again on a converged machine is retired again and said; found inactive is recorded as found, not done; a skipped step is said | host tests over a fake front end |
+| The report carries the filters and the found firewall's state for a converged machine | a host test reading the report |
+| `node show` lists filters with owners; `status` names a converged machine something else filters and is not well; the preview lists filters and fates | controller tests over a fixture report |
+| Live | the home server's record names the predecessor's chain in the runtime's user chain as *other*; `status` names the machine; after the operator removes the chain, the next report drops it and `status` is well |
+
+## References
+
+- [ADR 0100](0100-a-node-in-use-is-adopted-before-it-is-converged.md), [ADR 0103](0103-what-an-adopted-node-holds-and-what-its-guard-refuses.md), [ADR 0140](0140-the-filter-constrains-what-arrives-from-outside.md), [ADR 0102](0102-the-mesh-writes-into-a-shared-file-never-over-it.md), [ADR 0163](0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md)
+- [Design 08 — Connectivity](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md), [Design 05 — The node host](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/05-the-node-host.md)
+- Issues 084, 141, 143, 144, 145

02-DECISIONS/0169-a-machine-joins-through-the-tunnel-and-the-bus-is-never-public.md

@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
+---
+topic: the mesh
+status: accepted
+date: 2026-10-02
+deciders: jochen
+reconstructed: false
+extends: 02-DECISIONS/0004-a-node-and-how-it-joins.md
+---
+
+# 169. A machine joins through the tunnel, and the bus is never public
+
+## Context
+
+The bus is the one channel every machine depends on: enrolment, every declaration, every tool. The
+`nats` module declares it reachable from the mesh only. The controller still opens it to the whole
+internet on the machine that runs it, as a *foundation* port that no module declares and nothing may
+close ([issue 051](../04-ISSUES/051-the-mesh-cannot-update-what-it-depends-on/00-report.md)).
+The reason is joining. [ADR 0004](0004-a-node-and-how-it-joins.md) has a new machine enrol over the bus
+**before** it has a tunnel. [ADR 0007](0007-connectivity.md) states it as a requirement: the node
+running the broker must be reachable from wherever nodes are, at a stable address.
+
+So the bus listens on the internet permanently, for an event that happens a few times a year. A
+sweep of every machine on 2026-10-02 found no client using the public path. Every connection arrives
+over the tunnel or from the machine itself. The join token does not use it either: it carries the
+controller's configured broker address, a mesh name with the old broker's port.
+
+ADR 0004 already says what a joining machine needs: *an identity, an address, and one peer to reach*.
+The tunnel can be that peer, if the hub knows the new machine's key before the machine first knocks.
+WireGuard answers nothing to a key it does not know, which is why the tunnel's own port is safe to
+leave open where the bus's is not.
+
+## Considered Options
+
+1. **Keep the bus public.** It is authenticated and encrypted, but every exposure of it, and of the
+   server behind it, is exposure of the one thing everything depends on.
+2. **Open the bus publicly only while a join token is live.** Small, and the hub is open only during a
+   join window. But the window is real, the rule is about time rather than about who may reach the
+   bus, and the opening and closing are pushes that can fail between them.
+3. **The controller makes the new machine's tunnel key and puts it in the token.** One step for the
+   operator, but the private half leaves a machine it does not belong to. ADR 0004 refuses that for
+   every key a node holds.
+4. **The machine makes its key first, and the token is issued for it.** The machine prints the public
+   half of its tunnel key. The operator issues the token for that key. The controller gives the
+   machine its address and adds it as a peer on the hub. The token carries the hub's tunnel endpoint
+   and key, the machine's address, and the bus's address on the private network. The machine brings
+   up its tunnel and enrols over it.
+
+## Decision
+
+**Option 4.**
+
+- **A machine makes its own tunnel key before it has a token**, and prints the public half. The private
+  half never leaves it, as ADR 0004 says of every key a node holds.
+- **A token is issued for a tunnel key.** Issuing it assigns the machine's address on the private
+  network, records the key, and makes the machine a peer of the hub. The hub is sent that before the
+  token is shown, so the tunnel answers the moment the machine first uses it.
+- **The token carries the one peer.** It adds the hub's tunnel endpoint and public key and the
+  machine's own address. **Where** becomes the bus's address on the private network, which needs no
+  name resolution.
+- **The machine joins through the tunnel.** It brings the tunnel up from the token alone, then enrols
+  over it exactly as before. The enrolment checks that the key it is offered is the one the token was
+  issued for.
+- **The bus is never public.** It is no longer a foundation port. Its reach is what the `nats` module
+  declares: the mesh. The tunnel's port stays open, as the one way in.
+
+This changes three things earlier records say. ADR 0004's *where* is the bus's private address, and the
+token carries the peer. ADR 0007's requirement that the broker be reachable from wherever nodes are
+becomes: **the hub's tunnel is**. Issue 051's broker port stops being a foundation port.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- Joining is two commands on the new machine, with the token issued between them. A token issued for
+  the wrong key gives a tunnel that never answers, and the machine says so rather than timing out at
+  the bus.
+- An unused token leaves a peer on the hub until it expires. Expiry removes it, the same way it voids
+  the secret.
+- A machine already in the mesh is unaffected: it reaches the bus over its tunnel today.
+- The genesis machine, the first one, raises the bus on itself and needs no tunnel to reach it.
+
+## How this is checked
+
+| Rule | Checked by |
+|---|---|
+| A token is refused without a tunnel key, and carries the hub's peer and the machine's address | a controller test |
+| Issuing a token makes the machine a peer of the hub before the token is shown | a controller test over the hub's composed tunnel |
+| An expired, unused token's peer is gone from the hub | a controller test |
+| Enrolment refuses a tunnel key other than the one the token was issued for | a controller test |
+| No machine's filter opens the bus to anywhere | a controller test over the composed filter, and the live sweep from outside the mesh |
+| A new machine joins from outside the hub's network with the bus closed to it | the lab, then by hand |

02-DECISIONS/0169-the-firewall-seat-serves-its-verbs.md

@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+---
+topic: the mesh
+status: accepted
+date: 2026-10-02
+deciders: jochen
+reconstructed: false
+extends: 02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md
+---
+
+# 169. The firewall seat serves its verbs, and a foreign rule set is removed through one of them
+
+## Context
+
+[ADR 0168](0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md) made the mesh say truthfully
+what filters a converged machine, and left the removal of what it did not write to the operator's
+hand. The first time that hand was needed — two machines, five rule sets a predecessor and a
+retired front end had left — there was no mesh way to lend it: the packet filter is a seat
+([ADR 0121](0121-a-system-seat-is-named-for-its-scope-and-modules-define-their-own.md)), a seat's
+holder serves its verbs ([ADR 0154](0154-the-meshs-own-verbs-are-the-controller-seats-tools.md),
+[ADR 0159](0159-a-tool-call-names-the-machine-and-a-holder-serves-its-seats-verbs.md)), and the
+firewall seat declared none. The only remaining path was a shell on the machine, which is the path
+the mesh exists to replace, and which the operator's own tooling rightly refused to an agent.
+
+A seat's verbs are the contract every holder implements, whatever filter it speaks. What a person
+asks a machine's packet filter is the same whether nftables, a front end or a legacy filter answers:
+what are the rules, reload the mesh's own, remove this thing the mesh did not write. What differs by
+filter is the holder's own business and may be its own tools beside the seat's.
+
+## Decision
+
+**1. The `node-packet-filter` seat serves three verbs**, and a module that claims it serves all
+three or is refused the claim, as with every seat:
+
+- `rules` — the packet filter as the machine enforces it now: the nftables ruleset, and the legacy
+  filter's listings where that tool exists; narrowed to one table or chain when asked. Read-only.
+- `reload` — load the mesh's own filter again from the file the mesh writes, and answer with the
+  mesh's table as loaded. The holder's own act on the holder's own rules.
+- `remove` — remove one rule set the mesh did not write, named exactly as the host reports it under
+  ADR 0168 (`chain HAL-MESH-ONLY (iptables-legacy)`, `table ip6 filter, chain DOCKER-USER`), and
+  answer with what was done. It refuses the mesh's own tables, the container runtime's own chains,
+  a built-in chain other than the runtime's user chain, and any chain of a found firewall that is
+  in force. The runtime's user chain is emptied back to its one return; another chain loses the
+  jumps into it, is flushed and deleted; a table of the machine's own is deleted whole. Each is an
+  operator's act, by name, on one thing the mesh reported — never a flush, never a rule the mesh
+  itself marked.
+
+**2. A holder may serve its own tools beside the seat's.** The nftables module keeps its reading of
+the mesh's table as its own tool, and a holder speaking a filter with specifics of its own may add
+tools for them; the seat's three are what every holder owes.
+
+**3. A container may ask for a capability.** Serving `remove` and `reload` needs the machine's
+network namespace and the right to change its packet filter; a holder's runtime declares
+`capabilities: ["NET_ADMIN"]` on its container and runs on the machine's network. The host grants
+exactly the capabilities declared, names them in the container's spec so a change recreates it, and
+refuses a name that is not a capability's. A privileged container stays undeclarable.
+
+**4. ADR 0168's "by hand" is read as "by the operator, through the seat".** Removing what the mesh
+reports as *other* is still the operator's act and is still never the mesh's own doing; the verb is
+how the act reaches the machine, recorded on the bus like every other, instead of a shell.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- The seat's row gains the three verbs; a mesh that already runs widens its row at the next
+  controller start. The nftables module claims them and gains a runtime — a tool server with the
+  packet filter's tools in its image, on the machine's network, with `NET_ADMIN`.
+- The host's container vocabulary grows by `capabilities`; an older host refuses a declaration that
+  carries it, so the host rolls before the module.
+- The two machines of this mesh that ADR 0168 found not filtered by the mesh alone are cleaned
+  through `remove`, and read *the mesh alone* afterwards; `status` returns to well without a hand on
+  either machine.
+
+## How this is checked
+
+| Rule | Checked by |
+|---|---|
+| The seat declares the three verbs; a claim that serves fewer is refused by name | the catalogue's seat tests |
+| `remove` refuses the mesh's tables, the runtime's chains, a built-in chain and an active front end's chains, and removes a user chain with its jumps, empties the user chain, deletes an own table | the module's tests over a fake command runner, with the shapes the host reported live |
+| A container's capabilities reach the runtime and its spec; an unknown name is refused | host tests |
+| Live | `node-packet-filter.remove@<node>` on the home server and the control node; `node show` reads *the mesh alone* on both; `status` is well |
+
+## References
+
+- [ADR 0168](0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md), [ADR 0154](0154-the-meshs-own-verbs-are-the-controller-seats-tools.md), [ADR 0159](0159-a-tool-call-names-the-machine-and-a-holder-serves-its-seats-verbs.md), [ADR 0121](0121-a-system-seat-is-named-for-its-scope-and-modules-define-their-own.md)
+- [Design 33 — The tools the mesh answers](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md), [Design 08 — Connectivity](../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md)

02-DECISIONS/0172-the-lab-is-a-module-and-runs-a-bed-when-the-mesh-asks.md

@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+---
+topic: the mesh
+status: accepted
+date: 2026-10-02
+deciders: jochen
+reconstructed: false
+extends: 02-DECISIONS/0016-the-lab.md
+---
+
+# 172. The lab is a module, and runs a bed when the mesh asks
+
+## Context
+
+The lab raises virtual machines and runs the mesh on them, end to end, before a change reaches a real
+machine ([ADR 0016](0016-the-lab.md)). It runs on one machine of the mesh, the one with the
+virtualisation it needs. Until now the only way to start a bed there was to sign in to that machine and
+run the lab's command line by hand, with a dozen environment variables pointing at sibling checkouts.
+
+Nothing in the mesh could ask for it. An agent working through the mesh's own tools could build,
+merge and push a change, and could not prove it in the lab first. The operator's direction on
+2026-10-02: work on another machine goes through a mesh tool, not a shell on it.
+
+## Considered Options
+
+1. **Keep the lab a command line on one machine.** Every run is a person, or an agent with a shell on
+   that machine, outside the mesh.
+2. **The lab is a module.** Assigned to the machine that can run it, serving tools that run a bed
+   against named branches and say how it went.
+
+## Decision
+
+**Option 2.**
+
+- **A `lab` module, assigned where the lab can run**, serves five tools: whether this machine can run
+  beds, run beds against a branch per repository, a run's state, its log, and stopping it.
+- **A run is the lab's own suite**, against fresh checkouts of the named branches from the mesh's forge,
+  side by side as the lab expects them. It builds what the beds place from those checkouts, as the suite
+  already does. It answers at once with an id, like a build: a bed takes minutes, and a call does not.
+- **Only branches on the forge are run**, never code handed to the tool. What a run tested is what the
+  forge holds at the commit it names.
+- **The lab is reached over the mesh only.** Its tools travel the bus, and the module opens no port.
+- **No grant beyond the mesh's own.** Running a bed is root on the lab's machine, but anyone who can call
+  the mesh's tools can already do worse. The operator's judgement on 2026-10-02.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- An agent proves a change in the lab through the mesh, the same way it builds and pushes one.
+- The lab's machine carries a module whose runtime holds the virtualisation's and the container
+  runtime's sockets, and a toolchain to build the mesh with.
+- A run's checkouts are its own, so two runs never build from each other's tree. Old ones are removed
+  when their run ends.
+
+## How this is checked
+
+| Rule | Checked by |
+|---|---|
+| A run checks out exactly the named branches, and reports the commits it tested | the module's tests over a forge fixture, and each run's answer |
+| A run answers at once, and its state and log follow it to the end | by hand, the first run |
+| The module opens no port | the composed filter of the lab's machine |

02-DECISIONS/README.md

@@ -178,6 +178,10 @@ python3 00-META/checks/index.py            fail if stale
 - **0162** — [A merge produces a tiered plan the mesh keeps, and a module's dependencies are one relation in the catalogue](0162-a-merge-produces-a-tiered-plan-the-mesh-keeps.md)
 - **0163** — [Taking a module over is a comparison: what it compares, what it refuses, and what it carries](0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md)
 - **0167** — [A membership carries what its module receives, and who the mesh is](0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md)
+- **0168** — [A converged machine is filtered by the mesh alone, and the host says what else refuses](0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md)
+- **0169** — [A machine joins through the tunnel, and the bus is never public](0169-a-machine-joins-through-the-tunnel-and-the-bus-is-never-public.md)
+- **0169** — [The firewall seat serves its verbs, and a foreign rule set is removed through one of them](0169-the-firewall-seat-serves-its-verbs.md)
+- **0172** — [The lab is a module, and runs a bed when the mesh asks](0172-the-lab-is-a-module-and-runs-a-bed-when-the-mesh-asks.md)
 
 ### Its tiers, from the bottom up
 

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/04-lab-installation.md

@@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
 ---
 layer: to-be
 status: in-progress
-code: [mesh-lab]
-updated: 2026-09-11
+code: [mesh-lab, mesh-catalog modules/lab]
+updated: 2026-10-02
 decisions:
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0172-the-lab-is-a-module-and-runs-a-bed-when-the-mesh-asks.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0016-the-lab.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0010-delivery.md
 ---
@@ -119,7 +120,25 @@ In order, on a machine with nothing:
 
 6. **Verification**, as above, before anything is raised.
 
-## Open
+## The lab answers the mesh
+
+*2026-10-02* ([ADR 0172](../../02-DECISIONS/0172-the-lab-is-a-module-and-runs-a-bed-when-the-mesh-asks.md)).
+Once installed, the lab is also a module: `lab`, assigned to the machine that passed `check`. Its
+tools run there and nowhere else:
+
+| tool | does |
+|---|---|
+| `lab_check` | the lab's `check`, on this machine |
+| `lab_run` | fresh checkouts of the named branches from the forge, side by side, then the suite on the named beds; answers with an id |
+| `lab_status` | where a run is, and how it ended: the commits it tested, passed and failed |
+| `lab_log` | the run's output so far |
+| `lab_stop` | ends a run |
+
+The runtime is a container holding the toolchain the suite builds with. It reaches the
+virtualisation daemon and the container runtime through their sockets on the machine, so what it
+raises is what a hand run raises. The prerequisites above stay installed by hand. The module uses
+them, and never installs them.
+
 
 - **Whether the lab's bootstrap may install packages at all**, given that the mesh's rules
   forbid installing by hand. The resolution is probably that the lab's bootstrap *is* the

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/05-the-node-host.md

@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ status: in-progress
 code: [mesh-host]
 updated: 2026-10-02
 decisions:
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0141-the-host-delivers-its-own-successor.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0100-a-node-in-use-is-adopted-before-it-is-converged.md
@@ -176,6 +177,14 @@ has left to say. *How it is checked:* a host test joins a kept network and refus
 host test keeps a left-out module's record and hold and removes an absent module's; a bootstrap test
 holds the installer's constants to the module's manifest where the catalogue is checked out beside it.
 
+**What filters the machine, and the found firewall kept retired** — revision, 2026-10-02
+([ADR 0168](../../02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md)). The host
+reports, with every apply, every table and legacy chain that refuses traffic and whose it reads it as —
+the mesh's, the found firewall's, the container runtime's own, a ban, or other — and, converged, whether
+the firewall it was found with is in force and who retired it. It retires that firewall on every
+converged apply, not once, records *found inactive* apart from *disabled by the mesh*, and says when the
+step was skipped. *How it is checked:* ADR 0168's table.
+
 **Found reaches every kind that can touch what the machine has**
 ([ADR 0103](../../02-DECISIONS/0103-what-an-adopted-node-holds-and-what-its-guard-refuses.md)). For a module not yet taken, a directory present with no record
 keeps its mode and owner, a unit present with no record keeps its state and boot setting, a

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md

@@ -9,6 +9,9 @@ code:
   - mesh-host internal/apply (the service that reflects a rule set)
 updated: 2026-10-02
 decisions:
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0169-the-firewall-seat-serves-its-verbs.md
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0169-a-machine-joins-through-the-tunnel-and-the-bus-is-never-public.md
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0148-the-meshs-names-are-resolved-not-copied-into-containers.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0151-a-routes-internal-name-is-composed-under-the-node-that-serves-it.md
@@ -172,6 +175,28 @@ the broker's node must be dialable by every node, at a stable address, and so mu
 reachable; on one network it does not. A mesh whose nodes are all behind NAT cannot be raised, and
 a broker node whose address moves invalidates every token issued for it.
 
+*2026-10-02.* **The order changes at step 1: the tunnel comes first, from the token**
+([ADR 0169](../../02-DECISIONS/0169-a-machine-joins-through-the-tunnel-and-the-bus-is-never-public.md)).
+The circularity above is real, and it is broken differently. The overlay is configured by the mesh,
+except for the one peer a joining machine needs, and the token carries that peer. So the sequence
+becomes:
+
+```
+0  the node has an underlay address     the machine's own
+1  the node makes its tunnel key        before any token; it prints the public half
+2  a token is issued for that key       its address assigned, and the hub sent it as a peer
+3  the tunnel comes up to the hub       from the token alone: the hub's endpoint and key, its address
+4  the node dials the bus               OVER THE TUNNEL, at the bus's private address
+5  it proves itself, and is proved to   enrolment, checking the key is the one the token named
+6  the rest of the overlay              the whole peer set, delivered as files
+7  names, filtering, routes             as before
+```
+
+The link no longer stays on the underlay. The bus is reached over the tunnel by every machine,
+including one that is joining, so it is never opened to the internet. The precondition becomes: **the
+hub's tunnel must be dialable by every node, at a stable address.** That port answers nothing to a
+key it does not know.
+
 **Whether the link should later move onto the overlay, with the underlay as fallback, is
 [open](../../02-DECISIONS/0007-connectivity.md).** It is a decision rather than a derivation: the
 gain is which network carries bytes, not what an attacker can reach, since the link is already
@@ -710,6 +735,43 @@ needs no new filter; a declared port is reachable from off the private network a
 not; no address of a machine's own networks appears in a rendered filter, asserted on the text; and a
 machine reporting no outward link is refused in the control plane with its existing filter left alone.
 
+### A converged machine is filtered by the mesh alone, and the host says what else refuses
+
+*2026-10-02, [ADR 0168](../../02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md),
+from [issues 143](../../04-ISSUES/143-converging-does-not-retire-the-firewall-it-found/00-report.md) and
+[144](../../04-ISSUES/144-the-predecessors-rules-outlive-the-firewall-it-was-found-as/00-report.md).*
+
+Retiring the found firewall was a step the flip took once, and said it had taken whatever happened;
+on the first machine with one it did not take, and a hand's work fifty minutes later was recorded as
+the mesh's. And "the firewall found" named one front end while a predecessor's chain in the container
+runtime's user hook — legacy iptables on one machine, invisible to a reader of nftables — filtered the
+forwarded path, refused ports the mesh declared open, and carried an allowance every module reaching
+another by the machine's own name relied on.
+
+**Convergence is a state the host keeps.** Every converged apply reads whether the found firewall is in
+force; enabled again, it is retired again and said; the record says whether the mesh disabled it or
+found it inactive, and a skipped step is said. **The host reports what filters the machine**, every
+apply, adopted or converged: every table and legacy chain that refuses, with an owner — the mesh's,
+the found firewall's, the runtime's own plumbing, a ban, or *other*, which is where the runtime's user
+chain's refusals go. **The mesh says which:** `node show` lists them; `status` names a converged machine
+anything *other* filters and is not well; the converge preview lists what filters the machine and the
+fate of each — retired with the front end, left as the runtime's, left as a ban, or *left in force and
+not the mesh's*. The mesh removes none of it; adoption's threshold does not move.
+
+*How it is checked:* host tests over rulesets captured from three machines of this mesh classify every
+refusing chain (a predecessor's chain in the legacy filter as *other*, a ban list reached through the
+user chain as a ban, a leftover front-end chain as *other*); a fake front end enabled again on a
+converged machine is retired again and said, found inactive is recorded as found; the report carries
+the filters and the found firewall's state and a change in them is worth an unasked report; controller
+tests over a fixture report check the recording, the preview's fates, the status JSON and the well
+predicate. Live: the home server's record names the predecessor's chain as *other* and `status`
+names the machine until the chain is removed by hand.
+
+*2026-10-02, [ADR 0169](../../02-DECISIONS/0169-the-firewall-seat-serves-its-verbs.md):* removing what
+the host reports as *other* is reached through the packet filter seat's `remove` verb, an operator's act
+by name on the bus; the seat also serves `rules` and `reload`, and its holder's runtime declares the
+`NET_ADMIN` capability on the machine's network. See design 33.
+
 ## 5 — Certificates
 
 **Two authorities, kept separate on purpose.**

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md

@@ -1,8 +1,11 @@
 ---
 layer: to-be
-status: proposed
-code: []
-updated: 2026-09-27
+status: in-progress
+code:
+  - mesh-controller internal/inventory
+  - mesh-controller internal/catalogue
+  - mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller
+updated: 2026-10-01
 decisions:
   - 02-DECISIONS/0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0120-a-roster-fact-carries-its-format-as-a-template.md
@@ -14,10 +17,10 @@ decisions:
 # 29 — A node has operator accounts, and the mesh owns what lives under a home
 
 **The mesh models machines but not the people on them.** A node record holds its name, its
-address, its mode — and nothing about *who a person is* on it: `jochens` on novox, `ace` on ace,
-`jochen` on shanks and g14. That username is not incidental. It decides who a file under `~` is
-owned by, who a user service runs as, and — the case that surfaced this — which account `ssh
-<node>` logs in as. The predecessor knew it (its per-node `user:`, and the modules that wrote a
+address, its mode — and nothing about *who a person is* on it: one login name on the build node,
+another on the home-server, a third on both workstations. That username is not incidental. It
+decides who a file under `~` is owned by, who a user service runs as, and — the case that surfaced
+this — which account `ssh <node>` logs in as. The predecessor knew it (its per-node `user:`, and the modules that wrote a
 person's `~/.ssh/config`, `~/.zshrc`, `~/.config`); the mesh, taking those over, kept the machine
 facts and dropped the human one.
 
@@ -28,8 +31,9 @@ Several things are missing, and they are one idea.
 A node has one or more **operator accounts**: the human logins on it. At minimum a name; the
 mesh already knows the node and its address, so `<account>@<node>` is then a complete answer to
 "who am I, where." It is the mesh's to hold because everything below is derived from it, and
-because it is exactly the fact that was silently lost — `ssh ace` failed to `ace` because nothing
-in the mesh said ace's account is `ace`.
+because it is exactly the fact that was silently lost — `ssh home-server` logged in under the
+workstation's own name, because nothing in the mesh said the home-server's account is a different
+one.
 
 ## 2. A resource may live under a home, owned by its account
 
@@ -65,14 +69,14 @@ create `~/.ssh` at `0700`, chown it to the account, and own the files it places
 
 **The boundary — and it is the reason this is safe:** `~/.ssh` is the one directory where a wrong
 declaration locks a person out of their own machine. So the mesh's *found-vs-owned* semantics
-([ADR 0126](../../02-DECISIONS/0118-undeclaring-gives-a-unit-back-the-state-it-was-found-in.md),
+([ADR 0118](../../02-DECISIONS/0118-undeclaring-gives-a-unit-back-the-state-it-was-found-in.md),
 adoption) apply *inside* the home directory. The mesh **owns** the directory and the files above; it
 **holds as found — never rewrites, never removes** — the operator's own contents: their **private
 keys** and their **personal drop-ins** (`config.d/personal`, the personal `Host` aliases a
 workstation carries, exactly as `hosts.local` is the home the mesh never rewrites for `/etc/hosts`).
 Reconcile removing an unassigned `config.d/mesh` is fine; the same logic aimed at `id_ed25519` or an
 operator's own `authorized_keys` entry is a lockout. This is the login-channel cousin of the rule
-[ADR 0125](../../02-DECISIONS/0117-a-machines-uplink-is-a-seat.md) draws for the uplink and the sshd
+[ADR 0117](../../02-DECISIONS/0117-a-machines-uplink-is-a-seat.md) draws for the uplink and the sshd
 module draws for the firewall: **the mesh must never be able to arrange the one failure that severs
 its own way back in.** The carve-out is not a convenience; it is that rule, in `~/.ssh`.
 
@@ -108,12 +112,12 @@ found-vs-owned boundary of §3 is exactly what guarantees nothing already there
 
 None of this needs a node to discover the mesh, and none of it needs a control-plane module of its
 own. The ssh files are **roster facts**
-([ADR 0128](../../02-DECISIONS/0120-a-roster-fact-carries-its-format-as-a-template.md)): once the
+([ADR 0120](../../02-DECISIONS/0120-a-roster-fact-carries-its-format-as-a-template.md)): once the
 roster view carries a node's **host key** and its **account** beside its name and address, the
 `ssh-client` module ships a template for `known_hosts`, `config` and `authorized_keys`, and the
 controller renders each node's copy from the full roster and pushes it. The mesh owns the data; the
 module owns ssh's format; the control plane gains no ssh syntax. It is the same act as composing a
-peer list or `/etc/hosts` — which is why there is **no novox-only "mesh-ssh" module**: the
+peer list or `/etc/hosts` — which is why there is **no control-node-only "mesh-ssh" module**: the
 centralization is the controller's composition, not a module that runs somewhere. Only non-secret
 facts travel (names, addresses, accounts, host keys, the CA public key); the private key stays the
 operator's, placed as an operator-owned file, referenced by path.
@@ -129,6 +133,44 @@ operator's, placed as an operator-owned file, referenced by path.
 They meet at the account and the CA, not at a bespoke module. The `sshd` server side already exists;
 the client/identity side and the CA are the open pieces.
 
+## What has shipped, and what has not
+
+*Recorded 2026-10-01 from the controller's main branch, not from intent.*
+
+**Built (mesh-controller, merged 2026-09-27):**
+
+- **§1, the account as a node fact.** A node record carries an operator account and, optionally,
+  its home. Empty is a real state — a freshly enrolled or headless machine has no operator account
+  known yet — and an empty home means *derive it* (the superuser's home for the superuser, the
+  conventional per-user home otherwise), so the common case needs no entry. The controller's node
+  command sets it. One account per node is what exists; "one or several" below is still open.
+- **§2, resources under a home.** The account and its home are offered as machine facts, and a
+  resource's *path and owner* resolve placeholders exactly as its content does — so a module places
+  a file under a person's home, owned by that person, naming neither. A roster file may say it lives
+  under the home: it is rendered per node, placed under that node's account's home, chowned to the
+  account, and a node with no account gets none.
+- **§5, the composed ssh config.** The roster rendering carries each node's account, so the
+  `ssh-client` template can emit a `Host` block per node with the right login name. Composed
+  end-to-end in the controller's tests.
+
+**Written but not shipped:** the `ssh-client` catalogue module itself exists on a branch of the
+module repository; its pull request was closed with a hold until this design is deployed, and
+nothing has deployed it since. The predecessor's generator still writes every workstation's ssh
+client blocks today — which is where [issue 172](../../04-ISSUES/172-the-ssh-client-block-matches-one-spelling-of-a-machine/00-report.md)
+was found.
+
+**Not built:** the SSH CA and certificates (§4), `known_hosts` and `authorized_keys` as roster files,
+the found-vs-owned boundary inside `~/.ssh` (§3 — the controller has no rule yet that refuses to
+rewrite a private key), adoption of existing keys, the ssh-agent as a user service, and user-scoped
+services in general. The host vocabulary still has no user-scope unit at all; a workstation's
+per-user daemons (a bar watchdog, a config reloader, an audio service masked per user) have no form
+the mesh can send.
+
+**A gap this surfaced:** §1 shipped as code before it had a decision record. The account as a node
+fact, the home as a placement root, and what the mesh may and may not do under a home are each a
+decision this document names but no record states. They are the next records to write, before the
+family of §2 modules is built.
+
 ## Why now, and why not yet
 
 **Why it matters:** when HAL retires, the generators that keep `~/.ssh`, shell config and the
@@ -137,7 +179,7 @@ alias and its trust, and a fresh machine has no operator dotfiles at all — the
 service and leave the human unable to work on the box.
 
 **Why not build it reflexively:** it is a real addition to the node model, the resource model, and
-the seat set, and must be gotten right. The mechanism half is now settled — ADR 0128 is what lets
+the seat set, and must be gotten right. The mechanism half is now settled — ADR 0120 is what lets
 the ssh files be templates with no control-plane format — so what remains to decide here is the
 model:
 
@@ -156,15 +198,18 @@ model:
   unnecessary, and forwarding an agent into a node exposes the operator's keys to that node's root —
   so prefer certificates and `ProxyJump` over forwarding.
 
-**Not urgent, not blocking.** ssh and dotfiles work today because HAL's generators still run as the
-substrate. This becomes load-bearing in the node-by-node retirement phase, not before — which is the
-right time to build it, once the account and CA model are decided here.
+**Now load-bearing.** The migration of every node to the mesh is complete; what remains of the
+predecessor is exactly the user environment this design covers — ssh config, dotfiles, the desktop
+stack and the per-user services of the two workstations. Those generators are the last thing
+keeping the predecessor running, so the model questions above are no longer deferred: the account
+record, the home as a placement root, user-scoped services and the one-off steps a hook used to run
+each need a decision before the modules that replace the generators can be written.
 
 ## References
 
 - The gap was found generating `~/.ssh/config` from the *HAL* registry (`hal/terminal`'s
   postConfigure hook), which the nox mesh has no equivalent for.
-- [ADR 0128](../../02-DECISIONS/0120-a-roster-fact-carries-its-format-as-a-template.md) — the roster
+- [ADR 0120](../../02-DECISIONS/0120-a-roster-fact-carries-its-format-as-a-template.md) — the roster
   fact mechanism that renders the ssh files, format owned by the module.
 - [ADR 0112](../../02-DECISIONS/0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md) — the
   system-path placement this mirrors for home paths.
@@ -173,6 +218,6 @@ right time to build it, once the account and CA model are decided here.
 - [ADR 0113](../../02-DECISIONS/0113-the-vault-makes-every-secret.md) — the CA key is a secret the
   vault makes; [ADR 0114](../../02-DECISIONS/0114-a-shared-credential-rotates-over-two-credentials.md)
   — short-lived certs as rotation.
-- [ADR 0125](../../02-DECISIONS/0117-a-machines-uplink-is-a-seat.md),
-  [ADR 0126](../../02-DECISIONS/0118-undeclaring-gives-a-unit-back-the-state-it-was-found-in.md) —
+- [ADR 0117](../../02-DECISIONS/0117-a-machines-uplink-is-a-seat.md),
+  [ADR 0118](../../02-DECISIONS/0118-undeclaring-gives-a-unit-back-the-state-it-was-found-in.md) —
   the never-sever-the-channel rule and the found-vs-owned semantics, applied here to `~/.ssh`.

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md

@@ -2,8 +2,9 @@
 layer: to-be
 status: implemented
 code: [mesh-controller, mesh-tools]
-updated: 2026-10-01
+updated: 2026-10-02
 decisions:
+  - 02-DECISIONS/0169-the-firewall-seat-serves-its-verbs.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0160-the-mesh-issues-an-assignments-subjects-and-a-runtime-serves-what-it-is-issued.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0159-a-tool-call-names-the-machine-and-a-holder-serves-its-seats-verbs.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0154-the-meshs-own-verbs-are-the-controller-seats-tools.md
@@ -169,6 +170,18 @@ either way.
 What stays as designed and not built: which verbs any *other* seat serves, and §3 for module-declared
 seats' schemas beyond the names their manifests already list.
 
+## The firewall seat's verbs, 2026-10-02
+
+[ADR 0169](../../02-DECISIONS/0169-the-firewall-seat-serves-its-verbs.md). The first node-scoped seat
+to carry verbs: `node-packet-filter` serves `rules` (the filter as the machine enforces it, nftables
+and legacy), `reload` (the mesh's own filter from its file) and `remove` (one rule set the mesh did
+not write, named as the host reports it under ADR 0168; refusing the mesh's tables, the runtime's
+own chains, a built-in chain and an active found firewall's). Every holder serves all three; the
+nftables module does so from a runtime on the machine's network with `NET_ADMIN`, which is the first
+container to declare a capability. Removing a predecessor's rule set is an operator's act reached
+through the seat, recorded on the bus, instead of a shell on the machine. *How it is checked:* ADR
+0169's table.
+
 ## What this does not settle
 
 - Which verbs each seat should serve. That is a decision per seat, and the reason to do it slowly: a

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/README.md

@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ document is written and this one's status becomes `implemented`.
 | [`26-the-seats.md`](26-the-seats.md) | **Proposed.** What a mesh can have one of, who fills each, and a seat's holder answering for the provision it delivers — including the `git` seat a build's source can live on | [ADR 0126](../../02-DECISIONS/0126-a-module-declares-its-own-seats.md) (superseding [ADR 0110](../../02-DECISIONS/0110-a-seat-is-a-module-assignment-from-a-closed-set.md)), [ADR 0111](../../02-DECISIONS/0111-a-build-source-is-on-the-git-seat-or-external.md), [ADR 0109](../../02-DECISIONS/0109-a-package-registry-seat-is-one-per-ecosystem.md) |
 | [`27-a-module-requires-the-mesh-resolves.md`](27-a-module-requires-the-mesh-resolves.md) | **Proposed.** One concept for everything a module needs: a requirement with a contract, answered by one of four kinds of provider, resolved at assignment or refused. Retires settings, placeholders, facts and paths in definitions | [ADR 0112](../../02-DECISIONS/0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md), [ADR 0113](../../02-DECISIONS/0113-the-vault-makes-every-secret.md), [ADR 0114](../../02-DECISIONS/0114-a-shared-credential-rotates-over-two-credentials.md), [ADR 0126](../../02-DECISIONS/0126-a-module-declares-its-own-seats.md) (superseding [ADR 0110](../../02-DECISIONS/0110-a-seat-is-a-module-assignment-from-a-closed-set.md)) |
 | [`28-building-the-bus.md`](28-building-the-bus.md) | **Proposed.** The five steps of the bus work in the order their dependencies allow, each ending at a bed — with the surface measured, so no step's size is a guess | [ADR 0116](../../02-DECISIONS/0116-the-bus-is-built-in-five-steps.md), [ADR 0106](../../02-DECISIONS/0106-the-bus-is-nats.md), [ADR 0074](../../02-DECISIONS/0074-the-wire-is-specified-not-the-types.md) |
-| [`29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md`](29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md) | **Proposed.** The mesh models machines but not the humans on them: a node gains operator accounts, and a resource may live under a home owned by its account — what would own ~/.ssh, dotfiles and ~/.config when HAL retires | [ADR 0112](../../02-DECISIONS/0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md), [ADR 0051](../../02-DECISIONS/0051-shared-data-is-the-operators.md) |
+| [`29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md`](29-a-node-has-operator-accounts.md) | **In progress.** A node has an operator account and a resource may live under its home — built in the controller; the ssh-client module, the SSH CA, the `~/.ssh` boundary and user-scoped services are not. The account fact still wants its decision record | [ADR 0112](../../02-DECISIONS/0112-a-module-definition-names-no-node-mesh-or-path.md), [ADR 0051](../../02-DECISIONS/0051-shared-data-is-the-operators.md) |
 
 | [`32-what-a-module-declares.md`](32-what-a-module-declares.md) | **Proposed.** What a module declares and what the bus derives from it: three namespaces, subjects from local names, queues never declared, the five relationships, and the build-publish-deploy lifecycle on one bus | [ADR 0126](../../02-DECISIONS/0126-a-module-declares-its-own-seats.md), [ADR 0127](../../02-DECISIONS/0127-amqp-is-a-provision-not-the-bus.md), superseded by [ADR 0131](../../02-DECISIONS/0131-everything-on-the-mesh-speaks-to-the-broker-seat.md) (superseding [ADR 0125](../../02-DECISIONS/0125-the-bus-is-the-only-broker.md)), [ADR 0041](../../02-DECISIONS/0041-events-are-a-relationship.md) |
 

04-ISSUES/084-taking-networking-on-an-adopted-node-restarts-every-container/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-22
 located-in: [mesh-controller internal/overlay, mesh-host internal/apply]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: ADR 0102 (mesh-controller internal/overlay: the runtime file written into, reloaded), issue 128 (the hosts file as a region)
 amended-design: 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/05-the-node-host.md
 ---
 
@@ -56,3 +56,12 @@ and nothing checks for it today.
 - Should an adopted node that cannot trust the registry be refused a module that needs to pull?
   Or should the refusal come earlier, when the node joins?
 
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+The runtime's file is written into and the runtime reloaded, never restarted
+([ADR 0102](../../02-DECISIONS/0102-the-mesh-writes-into-a-shared-file-never-over-it.md), the
+diagnosis above); the hosts file is a marked region the mesh owns alone
+([issue 128](../128-the-hosts-file-is-written-whole/00-report.md)). Neither whole file remains. Read
+into [ADR 0168](../../02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md), rule 5,
+which names the one whole machine-wide file the mesh still writes — its own filter at the
+distribution's path — as a difference a take shows, not a fault.

04-ISSUES/086-taking-a-module-narrows-a-port-without-saying-so/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-22
 located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/adoption.go (take previews nothing), mesh-host internal/apply (the comparison and the record)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-controller 201 (the preview names the narrowing and the port's reach), 206 (`take --yes <digest>` acts on the preview read)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -46,3 +46,7 @@ host first, then the controller's `take`.
 mesh-controller 201 and the pull request after it: the preview names it, and `take --yes <digest>`
 acts on the preview that was read. Stays located until a take is read on an adopted machine — every
 machine of this mesh is converged today, so the record's live row has not been run.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+Closed on the operator's decision of 2026-10-02 with the built and tested code live on every machine (mesh-controller 206, mesh-host 64), not on a take read on an adopted machine: every machine of this mesh is converged, so none holds a found thing to compare, and the record's live row — ADR 0163's last — will be read at the next real adoption rather than staged. Said here so nobody later believes that row was run.

04-ISSUES/090-the-forge-module-does-not-take-over-the-forge-genesis-raised/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-22
 located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/adoption.go (take previews nothing), mesh-host internal/apply (the comparison and the record)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-host 64 (genesis raises the forge as `gitea`, on the module's image digest, with the module's data directory at /data; a test holds the installer to the module's manifest)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -63,3 +63,7 @@ to the module's manifest where the catalogue is checked out beside it. The netwo
 left: the bootstrap forge runs on the machine's network to reach the store on its loopback, the module
 runs bridged and publishes its ports, and the take says so. Closing waits for group 9's genesis test —
 a mesh raised, the module assigned, and the module found holding rather than raising a second forge.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+Closed on the operator's decision of 2026-10-02. Name, image and data directory align; the network does not — the bootstrap forge runs on the machine's network to reach the store on its loopback, the module runs bridged — and a take says so rather than hides it. Whether genesis should move the forge onto a bridge, and the test that raises a mesh and finds the module holding rather than raising a second forge, belong to group 9's genesis work and are not owed by this record any more.

04-ISSUES/098-taking-a-module-replaces-a-configuration-nobody-compared/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-23
 located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/adoption.go (take previews nothing), mesh-host internal/apply (the comparison and the record)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-host 63 (the kept original's difference), mesh-controller 201 (shown; a differing file refuses unless `--replace <path>`)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -74,3 +74,7 @@ host first, then the controller's `take`.
 mesh-host 63 reports the difference between the kept original and the declared content; mesh-controller
 201 shows it in the preview and refuses a differing file unless `--replace <path>` names it, or the
 module declares the file partially. Stays located until a take is read on an adopted machine.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+Closed on the operator's decision of 2026-10-02 with the built and tested code live on every machine (mesh-controller 206, mesh-host 64), not on a take read on an adopted machine: every machine of this mesh is converged, so none holds a found thing to compare, and the record's live row — ADR 0163's last — will be read at the next real adoption rather than staged. Said here so nobody later believes that row was run.

04-ISSUES/099-a-modules-image-pin-ages-into-a-downgrade/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-23
 located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/adoption.go (take previews nothing), mesh-host internal/apply (the comparison and the record)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-host 63 (both images' creation dates), mesh-controller 201 (DOWNGRADE said; refused unless `--downgrade`)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -71,3 +71,7 @@ host first, then the controller's `take`.
 mesh-host 63 reports the found image and both images' creation dates; mesh-controller 201 says
 DOWNGRADE and refuses unless `--downgrade` is said. Stays located until a take is read on an adopted
 machine.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+Closed on the operator's decision of 2026-10-02 with the built and tested code live on every machine (mesh-controller 206, mesh-host 64), not on a take read on an adopted machine: every machine of this mesh is converged, so none holds a found thing to compare, and the record's live row — ADR 0163's last — will be read at the next real adoption rather than staged. Said here so nobody later believes that row was run.

04-ISSUES/100-a-minted-secret-cannot-be-the-one-the-service-already-uses/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-23
 located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/adoption.go (take previews nothing), mesh-host internal/apply (the comparison and the record)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-controller 201 (`secret accept --provider` reaches a required secret), 206 (a module's secrets listed with origin; a minted one for found data refuses unless `--mint <name>`)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -78,3 +78,7 @@ The pull request after it reads every secret a module holds on a machine with it
 of a module whose data was found refuses a minted, unaccepted one — naming the accept that carries
 the existing value in, or `--mint <name>` to let the service take the new one. Stays located until
 a take is read on an adopted machine.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+Closed on the operator's decision of 2026-10-02 with the built and tested code live on every machine (mesh-controller 206, mesh-host 64), not on a take read on an adopted machine: every machine of this mesh is converged, so none holds a found thing to compare, and the record's live row — ADR 0163's last — will be read at the next real adoption rather than staged. Said here so nobody later believes that row was run.

04-ISSUES/101-taking-a-service-reached-by-container-name-cuts-its-neighbours-off/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-23
 located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/adoption.go (take previews nothing), mesh-host internal/apply (the comparison and the record)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-controller 201 (the neighbours on a found network are named), 206 (the per-machine `networks` setting), mesh-host 64 (the taken container joins the kept network)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -73,3 +73,7 @@ The preview names every neighbour on a found network (mesh-controller 201). The
 adds the per-machine setting `networks` — a container id to the found networks it keeps — judged for an
 adopted machine only, and mesh-host 64 has the taken container join each once it runs. Stays located
 until a take is read on an adopted machine.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+Closed on the operator's decision of 2026-10-02 with the built and tested code live on every machine (mesh-controller 206, mesh-host 64), not on a take read on an adopted machine: every machine of this mesh is converged, so none holds a found thing to compare, and the record's live row — ADR 0163's last — will be read at the next real adoption rather than staged. Said here so nobody later believes that row was run.

04-ISSUES/141-the-forward-chain-does-not-follow-the-modules/00-report.md

@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-28
 located-in:
   - mesh-controller internal/catalogue/filtering.go
   - mesh-host internal/apply
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: ADR 0140 — mesh-controller (the filter around outward links; no network ranges anywhere)
 amended-design: 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md
 ---
 
@@ -86,3 +86,11 @@ supersedes both 0137 and the first attempt at answering this.
   runtime, or left as the one constant?
 - Should the preview say which of a machine's networks are the mesh's and which are not, so a range
   that exists to protect a leftover is visible as such?
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+By [ADR 0140](../../02-DECISIONS/0140-the-filter-constrains-what-arrives-from-outside.md), built and
+live since 2026-09-29: the forward chain constrains what arrives on the machine's outward links and
+says nothing about networks, so there is no list to derive and nothing for a preview to tell apart.
+Read into [ADR 0168](../../02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md),
+rule 5, which closes it.

04-ISSUES/143-converging-does-not-retire-the-firewall-it-found/00-report.md

@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-29
 located-in:
   - mesh-host internal/apply/opening.go (retireFirewall)
   - mesh-host internal/apply/apply.go (the condition it is called under)
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-host 67 (retire on every converged apply; found-inactive apart from disabled-by-mesh; a skipped step said), mesh-controller 211 (the found firewall's state on node show)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -100,3 +100,21 @@ harmless, but the mesh's belief about which firewall is in force has been wrong
   so". Should it?
 - Why do the host's own detail lines not reach the journal? Everything it decided during the flip is
   unrecoverable, which is why this account has candidates instead of a cause.
+
+## Decided, 2026-10-02
+
+[ADR 0168](../../02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md), rule 1:
+convergence is a state the host keeps — the found firewall active again is retired again and said, a
+reconcile that finds it inactive records *found so* and never *done by the mesh*, and a step skipped
+after a failed apply is said. Built in mesh-host on `feat/one-thing-filters-a-converged-machine`; the
+record of both machines of this mesh is corrected by the first report under it.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-host 67 and mesh-controller 211, live on every machine at 10:10Z. The step now runs on every
+converged apply and says what it did; a found firewall enabled again is retired again. The record's
+one inherited lie stands as history: on the control node the machine's own record already said the
+mesh had disabled the firewall, and the host trusts its record, so `node show` says "retired by the
+mesh" there. From this build on, a reconcile that finds the firewall inactive records *found inactive*
+and never the other thing. Whether the flip's step took on 2026-09-29 is not recoverable and is not
+owed by this record any more.

04-ISSUES/144-the-predecessors-rules-outlive-the-firewall-it-was-found-as/00-report.md

@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-29
 located-in:
   - mesh-host internal/apply/opening.go
   - mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller (the converge preview)
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-host 67 (every refusing table and legacy chain classified with an owner; the runtime's user chain is other), mesh-controller 211 (kept, shown on node show, named by status, previewed with fates)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -82,3 +82,24 @@ everything reached from within.
 - Is the bus and the registry being reachable from anywhere still what the mesh wants on a machine that
   faces the internet? The design says yes, for enrolment. It deserves asking on its own rather than
   being answered by a leftover.
+
+## Decided, 2026-10-02
+
+[ADR 0168](../../02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md), rules 2 and
+3: the host reports every table and legacy chain that refuses, with an owner, and the runtime's user
+chain's refusals as *other*; `node show`, `status` and the converge preview say it. Built on
+`feat/one-thing-filters-a-converged-machine` in mesh-host and mesh-controller. On 2026-10-02 the home
+server still carries the predecessor's chain in its legacy filter; the record's live row is reading it
+there.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-host 67 and mesh-controller 211, live at 10:10Z. The live row of
+[ADR 0168](../../02-DECISIONS/0168-a-converged-machine-is-filtered-by-the-mesh-alone.md) was read the
+same hour: the home server's record names the predecessor's chain in the legacy filter's user chain
+as *other*, with what it refuses, beside two chains a retired front end left in the IPv6 legacy filter;
+the control node's record names the same two leftovers; the laptop and the workstation read *the mesh
+alone*. `status` names both machines and is not well until the operator removes what the mesh did not
+write. The allowance the predecessor's chain carried is
+[issue 145](../145-a-machine-reads-healthy-while-its-modules-cannot-reach-each-other/00-report.md)'s,
+and that record is not closed by this one.

04-ISSUES/194-the-hosts-own-former-archive-stops-every-apply/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-10-02
 located-in: [mesh-host internal/apply (removeOrphan: a former target of a kind with no removal was fatal), mesh-host internal/store (Record keeps a former target for every kind, the host's own archive included)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-host 65 — a former target of a kind the host cannot remove is left in place, said and forgotten; a dropped archive still refuses
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -62,3 +62,10 @@ because the alternative was four machines that could apply nothing.
 - Is there a bed that replaces a host under the current rules before the live mesh does
   (the proof row of [ADR 0141](../../02-DECISIONS/0141-the-host-delivers-its-own-successor.md) was
   a single crossover, before former targets existed)?
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-host 65, merged 07:35Z. Recovered as the record above says: the operator dropped the one
+`@former:` entry from each machine's host record and pushed; the fixed host then ran on all four and
+its first apply said `forgotten mesh-host.next@former:… a former target left in place` and applied the
+rest. The open questions stand as questions for the host's own versions, not as faults.

04-ISSUES/197-a-physical-link-that-is-down-is-not-filtered-when-it-comes-up/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-10-02
 located-in: [mesh-host internal/outward (Links reported only the links carrying a default route)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-host PR 66 (a link backed by a physical device is named outward, up or down), live 2026-10-02
 amended-design: []
 ---
 
@@ -36,3 +36,8 @@ that never carries the default route, such as a direct link to a storage box, is
 - A virtual link that faces outside (a VPN client's interface, a USB tether that appears as a virtual
   device) has no physical device behind it. It is named only while it carries the default route. Is
   that enough?
+
+## Resolved (2026-10-02)
+
+Live on the affected machine after the host was delivered and one more push: its filter now guards the
+radio, the tunnel and the unplugged wired port, before anything is plugged into it.

04-ISSUES/198-the-lans-dns-server-ran-outside-the-mesh-and-its-filter-closed-it/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+---
+status: resolved
+opened: 2026-10-02
+located-in: [mesh-catalog modules/dnsmasq (listens on loopback and the machine's mesh address only), the home-server's DNS (a predecessor's dnsmasq configuration the mesh did not own), the home network's DHCP (hands out the home-server as every device's DNS)]
+fixed-by: mesh-catalog PR 214 (dnsmasq listens on addresses from a setting; docker's file takes no settings), mesh-controller PR 210 (the settings verb), mesh-catalog PR 215 (unifi network DNS tools), live 2026-10-02
+amended-design: []
+---
+
+# 198 — The home network's DNS server ran outside the mesh, and the mesh's filter closed it
+
+## What was observed
+
+Every phone on the home Wi-Fi had no internet, while a laptop on the same Wi-Fi did. The router's
+DHCP hands every device the home-server's LAN address as its DNS server. The home-server's DNS daemon
+was listening on that address, and every query to it timed out. The router itself answered the same
+query at once. The laptop worked because it resolves through its own local resolver, not through the
+server DHCP names.
+
+## Why it happened
+
+The DNS daemon on the home-server was not the mesh's. It ran under a configuration file a predecessor
+generated, listening on loopback, the mesh address and the LAN address. The mesh's `dnsmasq` module was
+assigned to the other three machines and not to this one, so no module on the home-server declared
+port 53. Its filter opens only what a module declares, so DNS from the LAN was dropped. It started when
+the home-server applied the filter this morning, after nine hours of applying nothing
+([issue 194](../194-the-hosts-own-former-archive-stops-every-apply/00-report.md)).
+
+Nothing said so. The daemon reported running, the filter applied cleanly, and the mesh had no record
+that the home network depended on a service it did not know.
+
+## Why it matters
+
+**A service the mesh does not know is closed by the mesh's filter, by design, and nothing asks whether
+something depends on it.** That is the right default for an unknown port. It is the wrong outcome for
+the one service a whole network was told to use. The gap is that a machine can run something
+important outside the mesh with nothing to show it.
+
+**The mesh's `dnsmasq` could not have served the LAN either.** It listened on loopback and the mesh
+address only. The reach of its DNS endpoints opens the filter, but the daemon would not have been
+listening on the LAN address anyway.
+
+## Open questions
+
+- Should a machine report the listening services the mesh does not own, the way it reports the links
+  that face outside? This one would have been visible before the filter closed it.
+- The LAN address the home-server answers on is now a setting, beside the reach that opens the filter.
+  Two statements that must agree. Should reach `public` on a DNS endpoint imply listening beyond the
+  mesh?
+
+## Resolved (2026-10-02)
+
+The home network was pointed at the gateway for DNS while the fix was built, which got the phones back
+within minutes. Then:
+
+- the mesh's `dnsmasq` takes the addresses it listens on beside the machine's from a setting, with
+  loopback as the mesh-wide default, so no other machine changed;
+- the home-server's layer adds its LAN address, and its DNS endpoints' reach is `public`. The router
+  forwards no DNS, so that means the LAN;
+- the module and its sibling `resolv-conf` were assigned to the home-server, replacing the
+  predecessor's daemon and configuration, which were kept aside;
+- the home network was pointed back at the home-server, through a new `unifi` tool.
+
+Checked live: from another machine on the LAN, public names and mesh names both resolve through the
+home-server's LAN address, and the mesh and the machine itself resolve as before.
+
+**One fault found on the way, and caught before it reached any machine.** A module's settings are
+merged into every mergeable file the module owns. The first attempt therefore put the new setting into
+docker's `daemon.json` as well as into dnsmasq's config, and dockerd refuses keys it does not know. The
+plan showed it before any push. The change was reverted and redone with docker's file declared to take
+no settings. The general fault, a module's settings reaching files they were not meant for, is still
+there for any module with more than one file.

04-ISSUES/199-a-node-scoped-seats-verb-could-not-be-called-through-the-console/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+---
+status: resolved
+opened: 2026-10-02
+located-in: [mesh-tools src/client.ts (toolsOn left node-scoped seats out of the listing), mesh-tools src/mcp.ts (the call resolved the key against that listing)]
+fixed-by: mesh-tools 27 — node-scoped seats are listed with their scope, the verb requires the machine, and the call carries it in the subject
+amended-design:
+---
+
+# 199 — A node-scoped seat's verb could not be called through the console
+
+## What was observed
+
+2026-10-02, the first time a node-scoped seat declared verbs
+([ADR 0169](../../02-DECISIONS/0169-the-firewall-seat-serves-its-verbs.md)). The packet filter's
+holder on every machine served `rules`, `reload` and `remove` on the seat's per-machine subjects, and
+the bus admitted them. The console answered every call with *nothing serves
+node-packet-filter.rules@<machine>*.
+
+[Design 33 §4](../../03-DESIGN/01-to-be/33-the-tools-the-mesh-answers.md) says a node-scoped seat's
+tool carries the node it is asked of, as `<seat>.<verb>@<node>`. The console's listing left
+node-scoped seats out — the comment said they *wait for a caller naming the node* — but the roles map
+the console resolves a name against is built from that same listing. So the name never resolved as a
+seat's verb, fell through to a module's subject nobody served, and the refusal named the wrong cause.
+
+## Why it matters beyond this instance
+
+A stated behaviour that did not happen, with a refusal that pointed elsewhere: the seat's verbs were
+live on four machines and unreachable from the one surface a person uses. It could only be found by a
+node-scoped seat declaring verbs, which none had.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-tools 27: node-scoped seats are listed with their scope, their verbs take a required `node`, the
+call carries it in the subject, and a call without one is refused in words. Tested with a round trip
+asking one machine's holder and being refused without a machine.

04-ISSUES/200-the-controllers-answer-to-the-console-is-refused-by-the-bus/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+---
+status: open
+opened: 2026-10-02
+located-in: []
+fixed-by:
+amended-design:
+---
+
+# 200 — The controller's answer to a long console call is refused by the bus
+
+## What was observed
+
+2026-10-02. A `push` of the control node asked through the console came back as *mesh-controller.push
+did not answer in time. Something is serving it, so this is the tool being slow rather than absent.*
+The push had run; the machine applied. The bus's log on the control node, at the same moment:
+
+```
+[ERR] 10.10.0.1:56030 - cid:4015 - Publish Violation - User "controller",
+      Subject "_INBOX.shanks.mesh-console.WRNO5V9IJ1FX35AU5NRBEB.WRNO5V9IJ1FX35AU5PN1UW"
+```
+
+The controller's reply to the console's request was refused: the controller's bus account may not
+publish to the console's reply inbox. Shorter calls (`status`, `node`, `nodes`) answer; the long ones
+(`push` of a large machine, `issue`) time out on the console's side although they succeed.
+
+## Why it matters beyond this instance
+
+A call that succeeds and is reported as a timeout sends a person to retry what already happened — a
+second push, a second issue — and reads as the mesh being slow when it is the mesh refusing itself.
+Whether the inbox prefix the console uses is the one the controller's account is allowed to answer, or
+the request outlives the inbox subscription, is what a diagnosis has to tell apart.
+
+## Open questions
+
+- Which reply inboxes may the controller's account publish to, and which does the console request on?
+- Does a reply after the requester's timeout count as a violation, or is the prefix itself refused?